names and fines, were published at the time in the Manchester Guardian . In the six weeks, from July 1st to August 14th , the same sheet reported three similar cases. According to the Guardian for August 3rd , a pig, weighing 200 pounds, which had been found dead and decayed, was cut up and exposed for sale by a butcher at Heywood, and was then seized. According to the number for July 31st , two butchers at Wigan, of whom one had previously been convicted of the same offence, were fined £2 and £4 respectively, for exposing tainted meat for sale; and, according to the number for August 10th , twenty-six tainted hams seized at a dealer’s in Bolton, were publicly burnt, and the dealer fined twenty shillings.
But these are by no means all the cases; they do not even form a fair average for a period of six weeks, according to which to form an average for the year. There are often seasons in which every number of the semiweekly Guardian mentions a similar case found in Manchester or its vicinity. And when one reflects upon the many cases which must escape detection in the extensive markets that stretch along the front of every main street, under the slender supervision of the market inspectors—and how else can one explain the boldness with which whole animals are exposed for sale?—when one considers how great the temptation must be, in view of the incomprehensibly small fines mentioned in the foregoing cases; when one reflects what condition a piece of meat must have reached to be seized by the inspectors, it is impossible to believe that the workers obtain good and nourishing meat as a usual thing.
But they are victimised in yet another way by the money-greed of the middle-class. Dealers and manufacturers adulterate